Protestors called for greater financial transparency and condemned Martin’s discussions with the Trump administration outside of Brown hall on Thursday. (Bri Nitsberg | Student Life)

Midday Thursday, Oct. 23, approximately 60 students gathered outside of Brown Hall, where the Faculty Senate Council had a scheduled meeting with Chief Financial Officer David Gray. The closed meeting was the result of an August petition circulated by the Faculty Senate demanding that Gray disclose the University’s current financial situation, including its spending on Workday and the purchase of Fontbonne University, among other expenditures.  

The protesters, the majority of whom were graduate students, said that they want greater transparency about the University’s financial situation and denounced Chancellor Andrew D. Martin’s engagement with the Trump administration. The newly created Instagram account @rejectcompactunion coordinated the protest and circulated a petition against the compact that the Trump administration offered to WashU and several other universities.  

The compact, titled “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” requires signatories to commit to several reforms, including limiting international student enrollment, preventing the consideration of applicants’ race and gender, and mandating a sex-based definition of gender, among other stipulations.    

The students demonstrated, in part, because of Martin’s Friday meeting with the Trump administration to discuss the compact. While Martin told faculty this Wednesday that he rejected the compact in its current form, some of the protesters said that Martin “legitimized” claims about higher education’s problems by engaging in conversation with Trump officials on the matter. 

Hamza Hemani, a Ph.D. student in biomedical informatics and data science, was not satisfied with Martin’s rejection of the compact, which came after several other schools had already publicly rejected the agreement.

“We’re here to ask WashU to do the same as the other schools, schools that we like to compare ourselves with, like Harvard and the like,” he said. “Just reject it outright. There’s nothing good that comes out of … negotiating with fascists.”

Some of the faculty entering Brown Hall for the meeting cheered on the protestors and thanked them for being there. Protestors also sang songs and traded chants denouncing the administration’s perceived appeasement. 

“The people united will never be defeated. The people united will never be defeated,” protestors chanted. 

Mathematics Ph.D. student Ty Easley held a sign that read “Support Workers not Workday,” and said that they were concerned about the amount of money the University has spent on the transition to Workday.   

“300 [staff members] lost their jobs. Why is that less important than spending on Workday?” Easley said. “[I want greater] accountability to the workers who actually make the campus run. I hope that the Faculty Senate gets the answers that they’re looking for, and I hope that in general, we get greater care and transparency.” 

While the University has not publicly stated the amount they spent on the transition, an internal financial document obtained by Student Life shows the school spent almost $235 million on Workday. The Student Sunrise Project — which transitioned University functions from WebSTAC to Workday — cost $121.7 million, and Workday’s finance and human capital management component cost an additional $113.1 million.  

Junior Cameron Lubbe, an advocate for transgender rights, helped organize the protest. Lubbe was specifically concerned with the compact’s requirement to define gender in terms of biological sex and the LGBTQ+ marginalization that could follow.

“I want to guarantee that WashU won’t negotiate away the rights of trans students or any other marginalized group,” Lubbe said. “When we don’t get updated about what is going on, it makes it hard to trust that WashU is being truthful when they say they will act in our best interest.”

Another demonstrator was Bobby Huggins, a Ph.D. student studying computer science. He led many call-and-response chants for the protesters in front of Brown Hall. 

“We apparently seem to be broke, and no one can really get an articulate explanation as to why from the University administration,” Huggins said. “Clearly that financial pressure has an effect on all the other sort of capitulation that we’re seeing.” 

After protesting for about an hour outside of Brown Hall, the demonstrators moved to the Brookings steps where they continued chanting and took photos for about 10 minutes before dispersing. (Bri Nitsberg | Student Life)

This protest was the first explicitly anti-administration protest since students demonstrated outside of Martin’s house in 2021, although there have been a number of protests expressing discontent with University administrators and policies.    

As the Trump administration threatens fiscal punishment for higher education institutions that do not align with its ideological demands, universities are considering how to position themselves both ideologically and financially for the future.

To John Naughton, a Ph.D. student in mathematics, the compact’s demands are an attack on WashU. 

“These are demands that are just foundationally opposed to the core tenets underpinning the university system, things like academic freedom, free speech, shared faculty governance,” he said. “[This is] an assault on all members of our community.”